3G services replacing landlines

According to the CDMA Development Group, new 3G wireless voice and mobile broadband service offerings in China are poised to rapidly replace fixed-line solutions.

This is a fairly easy conclusion to come to and it appears to have nothing to do with 3G, everything to do with age. A quick survey of people under the age of 30 — admittedly limited — found the services offered by fixed line nowhere near enough for their needs. Of which SMS messaging is high on the list.

As most of them are not moving into permanent accommodation the mobile phone — 3G or not — is the answer to their needs.

China Telecom is now offering fixed and mobile broadband data services under its ‘e-surfing’ brand.

The operator has already launched 3G CDMA mobile broadband services in more than 120 cities, with plans to cover 324 cities nationwide by July 2009.

By catering to its long-standing enterprise relationships, leveraging its large existing fixed-line customer base and focusing on offering mobile Internet services, China Telecom added 6.8 million CDMA2000 customers in the first four months of 2009 to reach a total of 34.71 million CDMA subscribers.

The China Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) expects 3G wireless subscribers in the country to exceed 500 million within the next 3 years, as affordable mobile broadband services replace fixed-line Internet services and expand to rural areas.

EETimes Asia reports that according to the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), China’s Internet penetration rate at the end of 2008 was at 22.6% which is better than the global rate of 21.9 percent.

China’s Internet user base was at 298 million users with 279 million broadband users, while the mobile Internet user base doubled in 2008 to ease past 117 million users. 90%of all Internet users in China are also mobile users.

In, say, twenty years from now children will be asking wonderingly, ‘And you had telephones tied with wire to the wall?’

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